breeding | SALTBURNT

alright, let's not get too crazy.

[ "Mr. Homelander" 👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻 ]

gardens it is.

and not really, beyond "pretty fucking hard."

[ though at least this theory posits he wields somewhere in the vicinity of ~240,000 pounds of force 😌 ]

that's good. mind if i take notes? personal reference.

i'll see you there.

[ don't ask just yet. why spoil the surprise?

he doesn't make homelander wait much either. eunhyuk doesn't fly or speed through the halls; even if he could, it feels lazy to do so. he does make it in good time through good old wit and sneakiness, using the few shortcuts he's discovered during the everything is frozen month to slip out of the manor and cross the grounds to the garden.

the only sign that he's even a little bit upset is the lack of eyewear. he doesn't need them anymore, and never has since he came back, but eunyu's uneven attempt at fixing it is still visible. he wants to keep it that way. sentimentality makes no sense. ]

Hey.

[ A beat (a sudden reminder of endless tests, report after report by Vought's best and brightest), and then, ]

knock yourself out.

[ Because he trusts the kid, doesn't he? Whatever it is he wants, it couldn't be— well, he supposes he'll have to see.

When Eunhyuk arrives, Homelander waves, eyebrows rising just slightly at the sight of him without his glasses. (Granted, he's out of uniform, too, wearing a pale green sweater over a pair of jeans.) ]

Hey, yourself. You gonna tell me what this is about?

Yeah, just don't freak out.

[ he's limbering up, stretching his arms, doing calisthenics so matter-of-fact it's like he's joking. but he isn't. he's as serious as he's ever been.

it's not like he can ask hyunsu to do this. hyunsu has his own issues to deal with, and with the monster back out he doesn't want to complicate things even further between them.

for once, he's trying to be selfish. he'll apologise later. ]

I need you to hit me as hard as it takes to kill me.

[ The look of skepticism on Homelander's face only grows broader as Eunhyuk starts to stretch, though he figures that the consequences of agreeing to crush Eunhyuk's skull will be less serious here than anywhere else. They already know that everyone resurrects, and if he's "helping" the kid with something, who's really going to point fingers?

So he dispenses with any further attempts to make sure Eunhyuk knows what he's doing (he's a smart cookie), instead skipping straight to: ] Now?

[ And, as soon as he's received an affirmation, ] Alright, see you in a week or so, buddy, [ before he pulls back his arm, a wink serving as a final warning — a final chance to back out — and then—

—what he knows is this: the punch he looses at Eunhyuk would be enough to send anyone (anyone normal) fucking flying, the impact alone sufficient to turn any body part so unfortunate as to be caught in its path into bloody pulp, to turn concrete to dust. ]

[ thing is. thing is, he could easily catch that fist. eunhyuk could catch it or dodge it or throw homelander right back, because he's caught hyunsu's own metal spiky wing-fist full-on and the most he's gotten was a prickly irritation. hyunsu's not the protein monster, but he's nothing to sniff at either.

but dodging isn't the goal of this experiment, so eunhyuk lets that punch hit him squarely, sparing a very quiet but empathetic shit as his organs rupture before the rest of him follows.

yeah, okay, bloody pulp is accurate. eunhyuk explodes into a neat spray of organic matter, because he's organised even in death, apparently. bigger parts left behind scatter across the grass at impressive distances. he's dead.

and then it gets interesting.

eunhyuk's remaining pieces turn gooey, squelchy, melting off homelander's fist and clothes and drawing all back together into a large, wet mound on the grass. it pulses. the clear slime hardens, green and blue veins expanding then tightening, darkening to blood-red before finally paling again.

the slime egg cracks and eunhyuk slips out of it, naked but whole. ]

...Oh, you didn't leave. [ because this is very normal. ] How long did that take, do you think?

—I forgot clothes. Sorry.

[ Eunhyuk explodes into a bunch of bloody confetti, and for a second, Homelander just stands there, watching the bits and pieces settle as his mouth twists into a wry line. That's that, he thinks, as another second passes, the wind whistling by, and he's about to head back to the house when—

He's seen some gross shit before — part of the territory, one might say. This isn't the grossest, but it's still pretty fucking gross, and by the time Eunhyuk steps out of the goo egg (which, what the fuck), to say that Homelander looks visibly displeased — like he's stepped in gum — is an understatement. ]

So you thought through everything but reviving in your birthday suit?

[ But his frown loosens up, his head tilting to one side as he hesitates, then checks his phone. ]

—Fifteen minutes? Pretty handy.

[ A beat. ]

You conscious through all of it?

[ eunhyuk continues wiping the gross slick off his body, maybe wrings it out of his hair too. at least he's sitting on soft grass and not falling onto his face on broken-up concrete. ]

I'm not. The rest of it is. [ a beat. ] It's technically— I'm trying to understand it a little more.

[ guess it's time for a lore drop. ]

There's a sickness, back home. Once you catch it, it splits you into two sides: human and monster. For some, they stay switched on as a monster, and that comes with all sorts of powers. You look the part too, because your body changes to fit those powers, but your mind is pretty much gone. Whatever core desire you have, that's all you can focus on.

Some can flip the switch on that, in a manner of speaking. They don't change — not much, and not at first. They look the same, feel the same, can even think the same way, with some small differences. But it's still two halves of a whole.

Then there are people like me. Both halves integrated back together, able to access those abilities and train them. Those stuck in the early stages of transformation don't have the mental defenses against me forcing a hivemind — no brain, no shield. Others like me can do it, too.

If I'm in egg state, they'll flock over and protect the slime egg and not know why they're doing it. Anyway. [ ugh, that was his old ear? ] Dying triggers it. Hyunsu usually finds me and handles the... after-egg care.

[ the clothes, the general grossness. a very tidy codependency. ]

First time I did this, it took me a year. I'm trying to see how short the refractory period's gotten. [ a beat. ] And that wasn't a euphemism. Is this too gross for you, can you help me up?

New legs.

Edited (s2g i'm done) 2025-03-20 01:15 (UTC)

[ He can't deny that he's been curious, which accounts for why Homelander doesn't interrupt or wave Eunhyuk's explanation away. Rather, he settles his weight back on one heel, crossing his arms over his chest as he listens. It contextualizes most of what he'd said during October about Hyunsu's condition, and it's less that he thinks of more questions to ask and more that he wonders just how poorly-off things are in Eunhyuk's version of— well, at least South Korea, if not the entire world. There's a difference between the spread of superpowers and monsters, after all.

(And there's a little bit of— not pride, exactly, when he's had nothing to do with it, but at least interest in the fact that Eunhyuk's in a different class, even if he does still refer to it as a sickness.) ]

I've seen worse, [ he allows, as he offers Eunhyuk a hand — and once he's standing, if he needs it, his shoulder, too. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't seem to require much effort — he handles Eunhyuk as easily as a paper doll, rock-solid no matter how much weight the other man places on him. ]

So you wished for, what, immortality? Or is the egg thing just a perk?

I— [ did he wish for anything? was there anything he had actually wanted enough that it made him worse? ] I'm the same person before infection as I am after. Not even that much harder to kill.

[ —there is one thing, isn't there? ]

I wanted to protect my sister. I was ready to die to do it. Did die doing it. Maybe that's why I can't seem to get it to stick now.

[ a body that won't quit. a body that'll keep coming back to finish a fight, even if he doesn't start. a body that'll keep going on even if the people he means to protect no longer want him to, are no longer around, or no longer need him. it's a blessing that's also a punishment, because hyunsu doesn't need him anymore and eunhyu doesn't want him to protect her anymore — so what's he supposed to do now? keep existing? he doesn't even know if he'll age, or what his constant regeneration means for his lifespan.

eunhyuk lets homelander pull him up like he weighs nothing, and nods a quick physical apology. the slick is drying. it's getting stringy. what do they say in english? yuck. ]

Is it just pure strength that you can use, or do you have some other way to kill me?

[ food for thought: how often does homelander get asked to kill people? ]

[ While Homelander doesn't expect Eunhyuk to avoid answering the question, he also isn't expecting such an honest answer. It's plain as day on his face that he's a little taken aback, his eyebrows rising and then furrowing. His sister, the one that disappeared, the one he's already died for. And now he's here, up shit's creek with an egg-y paddle. It's a plight he sympathizes with — more than the bullshit nature of death or lack thereof, the nasty thing about this place is the way it fucks with a person's sense of purpose. ]

Heat vision? [ he offers, tackling the question Eunhyuk asks rather than lingering on the thing that had turned him. ]

Could fly you into space if we weren't in a bubble. Maybe run you around, see if your body can withstand breaking the sound barrier.

[ The lack of hesitation before he speaks suggests that the answer to Eunhyuk's unspoken thought is often, doubly so considering that he rattles them off the same way someone might go through a grocery list. ]

Why, d'you want me to try?

[ here's a bit of physical comedy: eunhyuk actually takes about five seconds to think about it. ]

I've got some resistance to speed. It's a side benefit, if you could call it that — enhanced speed and reflexes. Heat vision will be new, though. I've been thrown into a fire, got my throat cut, had a building dropped on me—

[ give him half a minute, he's got a list. not a long list, but having one that doesn't end after the first item in and of itself is a bit troubling. ]

–Had an Invasion of The Body Snatchers situation once, too. I liked that one the least. [ eunhyuk makes a tsk sound. ] Heat or speed. Which one do you think will go quicker?

[ Eunhyuk takes a beat — so does Homelander, not least at the invocation of body-snatching. ]

Ironically, might be the heat vision. It'll be cleaner, anyway, than running a track into the garden.

[ A beat, and then, ] You really got an upgrade, huh? [ Though he still sounds a little wry, falling short of happy. Since arriving here, he hasn't really changed his mind as to the worth of supes versus regular humans, but their circumstances (the fact that he has no more control over this place than anyone else) demand that he spend a little more time considering what such powers are worth. And if these powers were all for the sake of saving someone who isn't even here anymore— ]

Well ... you want me to turn you into fried chicken, just step back and say the word.

Jokes like that make me wonder if you've actually tried human meat. Not that I'd ask; this place is weird enough as it is.

[ that said, he does take to the instructions and steps back with a brief nod. it should feel weird to stand in the middle of the garden completely ass-naked and asking to die, but he's done far worse even before he turned, and if he's being honest — it's kind of exciting to do this. it's like a very terrible game of truth or dare, only he's the only one telling the truth and taking on the dares, just to see where homelander's line will end up drawn. ]

Do I need a warning...?

[ Said lightly, like they're talking about acne or rude language: ] Don't be gross.

[ As for the latter question, Homelander shrugs, regarding Eunhyuk with a very mild sort of curiosity. (The fact is that he'll never draw a line, not so long as Eunyuk's asking him to keep playing. He'd killed him even when he'd known he wouldn't come back immediately, after all. Maybe if they were anywhere else, where these fucked up soul barrier rules wouldn't apply, he'd make sure Eunhyuk knows what he's doing, but right now ... well, caution's to the wind.) ]

Do you want a warning?

[ Because all he gets is a split second of Homelander's eyes beginning to glow before twin beams of light tear through the air, shooting through Eunyuk's chest before cutting up through his sternum, through his head, as if burning his heart out wasn't enough. The whole thing lasts maybe one second, maybe two, the sound of sizzling flesh all that's left behind as Homelander's eyes blink back to blue. ]

[ no, he doesn't exactly want a warning — would be nice to have, though, even if homelander doesn't give him the opportunity to remark on it.

the sound of a laser isn't what people think, turns out. granted, it isn't laser eyebeams exactly, nothing like superman or whichever western superhero it is — homelander called it heat vision. tomato, potato, but they're both too bright for eyes to look at directly, and eunhyuk hears the air burn more than he hears the beams shoot from homelander's eyes. he has maybe a half-second of consciousness to appreciate just how gory and nasty homelander looks before the searing heat cuts through his everything, and then——

and then. and then. dead again.

this time, it takes a bit longer. maybe twenty minutes plus, his "normal" matter taking its time to melt, reform, and rebuild. when it's all done, eunhyuk has a lot more to spit out. ]

...so that left an aftertaste. Weird.

Your laser eyes taste like old socks.

[ He watches a little more intently, this time, now that he actually understands what's going on. It's fun, kind of — something a bunch of the supes back home would be jealous of, for sure, a full step beyond accelerated healing. (He thinks about going back into the house to get Eunhyuk a change of clothes, but he'd said something about needing looking after while he puts himself back together, and that seems a touch more important than nudity, which is a daily state for most of the people around here anywhere.)

Mildly, as he offers Eunhyuk a hand up again: ] How do you know what old socks taste like?

[ He doesn't love the comparison, though he's already chalking it up to the taste of burnt flesh or some kind of chemical reaction rather than whatever heat vision would taste like. Can you even taste heat vision? ]

Took you a little longer this time. Is it a repetition thing?

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cw: mentions of suicide

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